Speaker 0 00:00 Yeah. So this is our pilot episode of the, a workflow show. I'm Meryl Davis and to the right of me is Nick gold, howdy folks. So here's, here's what we want to do. I mean, let's just say a little bit about ourselves. You can talk about your crazy years in LA. I'll talk about my last exciting set of eight years of Chesapeake systems. Um, but who we are, what we do here at the company, but, you know, lead into, I guess, an overview of what people can expect of this show, not only in general, but over, especially the next, say four or so episodes over the next month. I am Meryl Davis. Um, I have, uh, spent the better part of the last 10 years working in the, uh, television and film space. I've worked on, um, I've worked on TV, I've worked on film.
Speaker 0 00:49 Um, I've worked as an editor. Uh, I have a background in it many years ago. I worked as a system administrator, uh, and, uh, I hear that perfect blend of it, tech and geek slash media doofus, kind of. Yeah. And then on top of that, you know, I, I spent a good bit of time working as an editor, um, in television. So we've actually done some of the stuff that let's say our clients do. That's true. I'm familiar with the workflow. I'm familiar with the, with just the kind of, uh, time constraints and ridiculousness of deadlines and how technology can actually really, uh, impede on, uh, you know, the end game. But, uh, it makes us all miserable. I know, I know I'm a pretty miserable person. Yeah. I, my tip is my technology makes me miserable, but I need it. Um, but so that's me.
Speaker 0 01:38 So you, you walked in our front door one day after he moved back here from all of your craziness in LA, cause you were just burned out on that lifestyle. Uh, the, the weather was great, uh, but, uh, yeah, no, I came back, uh, and I wandered in, uh, after going to the post office and I saw this, uh, church of Mac and it was literally a church of Mac, um, you know, stone church with stained glass window and a big sign that said Chesapeake systems. And you came in and you met us and that's correct. We hired you about a month later. Yeah. Yeah. I just, I wandered in and I was intrigued by the fact that somebody had the audacity to, um, open up a business in a church devoted to Macintosh for you. You've, uh, you've been in this space in a different capacity for many years, right?
Speaker 0 02:23 Yeah. I came from kind of more of a, an Apple Lee creative background. I was into kind of computer music with Apple platform back in college. I got a gig working for a company that was actually local here in Baltimore and had a contract with Apple to be one of the Apple care support call centers. So I was kind of, Oh, you're one of those guys. I did the whole welcome to Apple. How can I help you fix your, you know, why can't my laptop connect to my wifi, which was basically like 20 calls a day of that. And it's a lot of fun trust me, but eventually I kind of took over the role of managing the sales side of that operation. So when I came on board at Chesapeake, but this whole like Mac salesy kind of background when they were looking for that, you know, uh, it worked out well and I kinda got hired during my interview, but, um, it's interesting cause we've evolved here when it was a very macro focused operation.
Speaker 0 03:22 When I came on board, we've kind of diverged in the sense that our protein is kind of devoted more to these Provideo solutions, most of which is storage and asset management and archive related. Okay. So let's, let's talk about this show. We want to really emphasize on this show, um, the, the, the current issues of the day regarding specifically technology and workflow employed by digital media professionals with probably a specific interest in the video for broadcast and production slash post production space. Do you work at a production company? Do you do a lot of editing? Are you abroad Costa? Do you have a boss that talks to you about budget and you tell him you need X and he says, Y if so, I'm sorry. So well, okay. This is the emphasis it's technology and workflow for the today's creative professional, specifically those in the video world.
Speaker 0 04:22 So with that said, okay, so let's, let's talk about the things that people probably should be thinking about paying attention to some of which they are some of which they aren't, but it shouldn't be that we're going to be hidden over the next few. The first one, the, as I've heard it described the NLE Wars, the NLE Wars is such a silly name to basically say changing landscape of the NLD platforms, NLE for those who aren't yes. Nonlinear editor. This is, you know, back in the day back when, uh, um, let's, let's just cut to the chase of cut from our, tell a story about analog editing. You're all like, whatever. Okay, go ahead. We've told them about stories. Um, Apple yanked, final cut. As we knew it from everyone's hands, it was our baby. We had grown to know it over the years. We had a love, hate relationship with it in some ways, and yet it was comfortable.
Speaker 0 05:15 It was kind of like that longterm relationship. You find yourself in where your DVD, no stories here. Come on. I'm just going to say where your DVD. I don't share that story. Okay. I can't tell a story about analog, anything you can't talk about your collection, like dramatically transforms this thing a little over a year ago. Um, and the world was never the same in that it forced everyone to wonder what should I do about my editing platform? Should I keep using final cut seven for the rest of my life and never touch my computer again? That kind of does what I want it to do. So I'm just gonna leave it be and go BA with my hands over my ears and pretend that the world isn't moving on or should I pay some attention to number one final cut 10 number two, premier pro number three, media composer, number four, smoke smoke smoke is a, you know, it's crazy.
Speaker 0 06:08 It's, it's interesting though, that they've entered the market, uh, trying to, and trying to be a little bit more lender friendly versus purely kind of finishing and effects. I've talked to maybe one customer since the smoke announcement that even showed any interest in that though. It's a very specific ones to show interest in. It really have no experience with smoke. And don't understand that it's not the answer to all of your prayers. I don't know if he had any experience with it or not, but, uh, it did seem, it didn't seem strange. Cause when he mentioned it to me, I actually had forgotten that smoke has made the announcement. So, okay. So the NLE Wars is going to be our next episode and pay attention. We are certain to say the same types of controversial. You'll tell stories about our collection. I promise week after that week after aniline Wars, what's up with the Mac.
Speaker 0 06:57 That's actually a very good question. And we sort of had an answer which was at a WWDC. We saw processor update. Yeah. It went from a whole 2.93, a six core duel, six core at the high end to the also two year old 3.06. Uh, give your Hertz six score. Same two plus year old processor that they've been selling at a grossly inflated price for a couple of years. Now. It's kind of smart though. I mean like, just imagine if you had to do realize all these things for a living, it's really acknowledging that it's a little kind of embarrassing that Apple is selling a two year old. It's totally awesome for the guy that bought something four years ago. Cause if you go into his office, you can't tell what a, what machine he has. Cause they've had the same case for that's always kind of been the case with Apple.
Speaker 0 07:45 Their upgrade cycle has never really been in lock step necessarily with the state of the art. When they went Intel a few years ago, you started, it was more than a few years ago, dude. Okay. When I was a wee lad, um, you started to see Apple, you know, maintaining an upgrade cycle that was more in lockstep with Intel's own ship release cycle. We all remember the old Motorola and then IBM days of power PC where our PC God, I haven't even said that word out loud and so long. Remember when you guys hired me, I still had a working G five and you laughed at me. Do you remember that? I sure do. So. Anyway, the Mac pro um, hasn't seen a lot of love, uh, interestingly Apple's execs hinted at worldwide developer conference. That's something specifically for you pros there's coming in 2013 and everyone was like, dude, the world is ending at the end of this year.
Speaker 0 08:41 No, they actually proved that wrong. It's a bunch of BS. You know, if you look, they've already debunked at my encounter stuff, so please, please feed my illusion that my birthday triggers the end of the world. Well, you can still have a good time. You don't have to like, uh, you know, kill yourself. How was it going to more like bring down the rest of the world. I see. I see. Okay. But anyway, so everyone's like 2013. That's way into the future. It will be here in no time. Well, it probably will be, but I think people are wondering what site H what's going on now, HP, Dell, everyone else reign who was the PC manufacturer that we really seem to like, cause they're very squarely and completely oriented around pro workstation green computers. Yep. Um, they've all started coming out with machines that are based on the newer generation of, of, of the Xeon class workstation slash server chip that, that Apple had been using in the macros for a few years.
Speaker 0 09:37 These are what are called the Sandy bridge. <inaudible> those are out now. They've been out for a couple months. Why can't Apple just release a new Mac pro that maybe throws on some Thunderbolt ports and you know, ups the Ram and you know, your speed 3.0 would be really nice. Ooh, crazy. Right. I mean like this is stuffed standard affair and these new chips that any one, any Joe Schmo can buy from Intel, why isn't Apple doing it? And they're like, Oh yeah, well, we got something coming for you in 2013. As you all know, Apple likes to play their cards close to their chest. Um, so, and, and we'll talk about this more in the what's up with the Mac pro episode of the show. That's right. I have some theories about maybe what we'll see. I'm not like rumor mongering or anything, uh, Apple reps who maybe listening to this podcast because I know that frown on that.
Speaker 0 10:29 Um, but you know, some ideas that, you know, wouldn't it be cool if Apple were to go down this route and things like Thunderbolt, maybe open up some interesting possibilities that great. That one could kind of see, Oh yeah, this is why it's taking a little longer to do something interesting here because something really neat is coming, but it takes a lot more energy than a simple refresh. I think we're going to see the desktop platform as we know, sort of deconstructed and that kind of same way where you go to a fancy restaurant and you get like that meal, that's a deconstructed meal, but still was really an LA thing because I'm not familiar with this concept. Is it like, here's the ingredients for your hamburger? Like make it yourself? Well, no, I mean, here's a bomb. It's kind of an, the cow. Uh, yes.
Speaker 0 11:12 You have to slaughter your own cow. It's totally. I mean like with all the, yeah, that's an LA thing, but anyway, terrible analogy. So let's move on. So, okay. After the, what's up with the Mac pro episode, we're going to do an archive episode, however, it's not just about archives. You know, so an interesting thing happened in the eight years that it was at Chesapeake. We made a transition, we had video tapes. They don't really get used very often anymore, except possibly for mastering, possibly for delivery. And even then that's still digital tape. I mean the days of analog it's gone, a big thing happened in that. Like, we don't even deal with tape anymore. It's right. Files. You're shooting files on your camera. Your camera became a computer one day. No one really seemed to notice the ramifications of this. Everything became files, everything became it.
Speaker 0 12:04 Equipment. You don't have a videotape to slap on the shelf anymore and archive from, I hate to say it. Many of our clients is still stacks of FireWire drives is sitting in like a closet or a cupboard or on the top of your desk. Literally there they're always like leaning precariously, like the leaning tower of PISA. Like I think it's a rule for stacks of FireWire drives. They have to be like lean. They have to be leaning. They have to be properly mislabeled. They need to be out of order in some manner. The one you need is always mentioned. Good one. Right? Here's a good one. Hey, have you fired this thing up in the last few years to see that it like actually even still works? No, but it will work when I fire it up. It's okay. When we get this intern, we're going to have them burn a couple dual layer DVDs.
Speaker 0 12:53 So it'll be fine. So not a viable archive strategy, but what's this all really about it's about people haven't come to terms with this dramatic shift in the technology and the workflow of file-based workflows. And it's like, we've, we've tried to like concentrate, not we us at Chesapeake, but we, the industry like have really been sold on this idea that OU shooting a file on your computer and then natively editing it on your NLA or I'm sorry, shooting on your camera and then editing it natively in your alley. It's it's, it's easy. It makes everything easy and wonderful. And yet there's all of these ramifications are actually more difficult, like archive and doing it properly when you don't just have a video tape to stick on the shelf. That's right. And, and, uh, when, when people would shoot, um, having a finished project meant here's all my original source material now.
Speaker 0 13:47 Um, there's, you know, I think at first they weren't even sure that, uh, investing in a hard drive should have been the way to go. I, you know, uh, what do you do when you're done with all your work? Like when you have source files, so you can't just throw it away. I mean, before you could just put them on like Nixon, put them on a shelf. And I think the challenge here is that, you know, there's enterprise level solutions for archives that are, that are good and appropriate for digital video media, but they can be costly and complex. There are some solutions for archive that are maybe data take based that are more approachable in terms of cost and easier to use in terms of complexity. But it's, it's still not let me spend $300 on just another terabyte or two terabyte, hard drive and throw it on a shelf and forget about it.
Speaker 0 14:34 So spinning disc for that stuff is not good. But of course we'll get into that later. We'll talk more about that. Okay. So after those episodes, I think we're going to do one, cause it tends to keep us busy. And a lot of our client's busy a lot of the time, which is this whole thing that we like call media, asset management, just the facts, man, man, or dam digital asset management. What's the difference between man and dam? One's the mommy wants the daddy. No, that's in fact the phrase is damn and ma'am, I don't think most people who actually are in the industry can even agree on what they mean, which means that they're buzzwords really, but okay. But really what is man? What is damn well it's, it's actually pretty simple, um, in the world of digital files on these computer things, um, we've basically traditionally had one way of organizing things, which is this whole scheme of file folders and files and naming conventions and the naming conventions, both of your folders and your files, and then kind of the hierarchical, um, you know, grouping of folders inside of other folders that you use to organize things.
Speaker 0 15:52 It was the file system, right? Your digital sock drawer. It really is. And that's really what it's become for a lot of people. And there are some organizations we work with that are good at organizing things at the level of the file system. But the reality is that's usually because they have kind of a file Nazi on the staff. That's true and most editors are not files. Pardon the term file Nazis. Uh, they are, uh, they're happy to do laundry and put it up in one big ball and then sit it on the end of the bed and then get out of, uh, that's right. It's almost become the digital equivalent or the, the file equivalent of a bunch of crazy mislabeled videotapes on a shelf. Okay. So that's how a lot of people still are managing their digital files. So what is media asset management?
Speaker 0 16:37 Well, it's really kind of a buzzword for talking about a database driven approach to organizing these things and having a much more customizable, much more multidimensional way using database driven technology versus just purely the file system to organize this stuff. So you're saying if I want to find all video clips that are, that, uh, involve you, uh, fighting at an MMA match, I would, I would, I would sort of search for Nick gold and MFA champion. Yes. I was going to say something champion something, getting kicked royally, but I can find that to ourselves, every single source clip of that, or based on time code based on the day it was shot or based on any number of customizable criteria and criteria that comes from the camera, but criteria that I can, I can, can, I mean, okay. So think of like logging next to Jen. Well, I mean logging 2.0 exactly. Anyway. So that's what you guys have, uh, in store for you over the coming weeks, please stay tuned on chestnut.com. Oh yeah. And if you want to email us, especially here at the show, a work flow
[email protected] that's w O R K F L O w S H O
[email protected]. Okay. Later guys, thank you for joining us. And we'll talk to you next week.
